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We could save the entire planet if more people would just watch Mr Bean

We could save the entire planet if more people would just watch Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson).

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I know. Sounds sort of crazy, right?

Maybe not so crazy when you stop and think about how triggered everyone seems to be these days. Seems everyone has an angst of some sort or the other. Doesn’t seem that anyone ever relaxes.

The world needs to take a day, or possibly even a weekend, off.

Some of the happiest people on the planet know how to relax … Not everything is about them. They seem to take things in stride, and focus only on the sorts of things that might directly affect them on a day to day basis. Paying the mortgage on time, making sure the dog water is fresh, tucking the kids in at night … You know … the normal every day things that makes the planet a fine place to live.

Being able to laugh at yourself, and of course, other people, is a thing that’s pretty deep rooted in human nature, so why are we all trying so hard to be un-human?. The planet desperately needs laughter. How can we as a species ever expect to move forward without laughter. Social interactions among humans is pretty tantamount to the survival of humans. Laughing, singing, and dancing, are all things that take the edge off of this whole survival thing we’ve got going on.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the video of Chariots of Fire – Mr Bean & the London Symphony Orchestra below:

 

Ben Stillwater – Montana

Listen to Ben Stillwater’s – “Montana” in the video below:

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Ben Stillwater’s new albums are called “Montana In The Spring” and “Giddy Up Truck,” two titles that tell a great deal about Stillwater, whose musical heroes include Roy Orbison, Hank Snow, and Mark Chesnutt.

“I was raised around cattle, but I was mostly into trucking and still run a trucking company,” Ben says. “I’m also into timber management and logging, as well as renewable energy, wood chips and sawdust for heating pellets.”

Ben Stillwater knew how to run very profitable businesses long before he ever got to Nashville. That’s 1,695 miles from his hometown of Livingston, Montana.

“I’ve been working in my own businesses, where I could get ‘em to the point that allowed us to move down to Tennessee, go into the studio and still keep the things running,” Ben says.

The music of Ben Stillwater kind of brings me back to a place in Montana that I knew as a child.

You can purchase any one of these very reasonable priced albums above and more when you visit Ben Stillwater’s website.

Tomas Skyldeberg – Perfect Colours

Tomas Skyldeberg is a Swedish composer most known for his electronic music, which contains an inimitable balance of dreamy vibes and epic house.

Listen to Perfect Colours released in 2019:

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Born in Gothenburg, on the west coast of Sweden, Tomas enjoyed singing and listening to music throughout his childhood, but didn’t start to develop a deep understanding of it until he received some basic music software from his friend at the age of 17.

For the next two years he created music with his friends, subsequently releasing tracks with the aim of masterminding a big hit. Continuing his musical interest alongside a full-time career, it wasn’t until 2016, when he released the albums “Falling Stars” and “Streets of Paris”, that his work began to gain appreciation.

After a relatively quiet 2017, Tomas re-emerged in March 2018 releasing five soft house tracks in the form of the EP “Everything Shines”, subsequently following this up with the singles “Feel The Breeze” and “Moving Up” and the album “Love Like Gold”.

Today he lives in Gothenburg where he continues to compose and produce music, consistently adding to a back-catalog that has already been heard over a billion times on YouTube.

Tomas Skyldeberg is a musician with a presence on platforms like SoundCloud, Instagram, Last.fm, and Epidemic Sound, indicating he is involved in creating and distributing music that can be accessed and followed by fans online.

Tomas Skyldeberg has tracks available on SoundCloud, where users can stream his music, and on Epidemic Sound, which suggests he might offer royalty-free music for content creators. His presence on Last.fm allows fans to track his music, see what others are listening to, and get recommendations.

His music’s availability on these platforms shows he’s actively distributing his work for public consumption, which is crucial for modern musicians to gain visibility and feedback.

A governmental conundrum

With all of what I’ve learned over the past 20 years with regard to the internet, I’ve found myself settling in to more of a lurker status. I’ll read the outrage blogs, the opinion pieces, the so-called journalistic efforts of shock and awe mainstream media, and so on and so forth. I don’t comment much really on any of it.

Attempting to understand where all sides are coming from is pretty much paramount in these days of the constant confusing and convoluted information that spews forth from miraids of cyber sources that many might consider news these days. Trying to make sense of the the jabber-jockey dialogue on the internet these days is a rather daunting task it seems, but yet I muddle through, with great interest in the ever elusive outcomes that might occasionally present themselves at the end of the day.

Everybody seems to be looking for that one particular “Gotcha” moment that will forever settle their own misguided argument on a matter that really won’t ever make any kind of substantial difference.

Our founding fathers wouldn’t necessarily be rolling in their graves over any of what goes on today, but if they were here, I’m pretty sure that they would be totally blown away at just how wildly successful all of their original efforts have become. The constant tug-of-war of concepts, ideas, thought, and more in Washington D.C. is pretty much what they imagined from the beginning, with the only caveat being that our system of government wasn’t designed to accommodate only 2 political parties. Our founding fathers had somehow envisioned 3, maybe 4 parties in the beginning. More parties, by their reckoning, would mix it up a bit, and keep the ideas flowing with none of the parties really ever getting the total upper hand on the others. Multiple parties would force compromise, expand dialogue, and continue the discussion into areas that might best suit the many, as opposed to just suiting the few.

Currently, our government faces a conundrum. We’ve got only 2 types of people in this nation now. Those who aren’t afraid of anything, and those who are afraid of everything. Our 2 party political mix has only been able to produce 2 kinds of certain outcomes and the government is at an impasse on what to do about it. Ruling by political fiat and executive order is all we have left. Only the few are seeing any kind of certain relief when it comes to government action and the rest are left to fighting and arguing amongst themselves over things they have absolutely no control over.

An example:

The IRS is so far behind in their function that there are literally millions of tax returns that remain unprocessed from 2019. Other government agencies are unable to keep up as well. Immigration is a big one. The flow of asylum seekers has ballooned to the point that our border patrol has found itself grossly underfunded and substantially over whelmed by the sheer volume of those who want to enter our nation, albeit either legally or illegally.

Our Congress hasn’t fared any better than this. Since our 2 party system has never been equipped to address the issues in a timely fashion, it’s devolved into a quasi ponsi-kick-back-pay-day organization. Money laundering schemes run rampant on the hill, and it’s becoming extremely difficult for our so-called-elected representatives to hide it.

Case in point:

Since when does a Muslim nation have a gender studies program? Enhancing Gender Equality in Afghanistan means that more women were able to become bee keepers. An “undisclosed” amount for billions could have at least maybe produced some female Afghan  computer engineers or possibly some micro-biologists, but since women have been farming for centuries in Afghanistan already, the best they could possibly produce for all of that money was bee keepers.

Meanwhile, in 1964:

Gender reform was central to the contentious issues which brought about the fall of King Amanullah in 1929. In 1959, the male-oriented government of Prime Minister Daud Khan supported the voluntary removal of the veil and the end of seclusion for women. The 1964 Constitution automatically enfranchised women and guaranteed them the right to education and freedom to work.

Since the 1964 Afghanistan Constitution automatically enfranchised women and guaranteed them the right to education and freedom to work, why do we need to be sending Afghanistan “unspecified” billions for something that was already accomplished clear back in 1964? Doesn’t Afghanistan have it’s own economy and education system? The answer to that is a resounding “yes”.

How much of that “unspecified” billions gets sent back to our representatives through other channels for the favor?

The point I’m trying to drive home here is that it doesn’t really make a difference who the President is. Trump or Biden, the pay-offs are going to continue unabated. The 2 party system of government in this nation absolutely does not work. When a President finds his or herself having to “rule” by executive order, then it’s a sure sign that our “original” system of government is falling by the wayside. When the Congress has become so inept and ineffectual with regard to legislating, it’s time for a change. It may already be too late to allow for other political parties to join the fray. The damage to our system of government may have already become irreparable.

Our government is faced with an intricate and difficult problem. A problem of it’s own creation that becomes seemingly more ignored as the months go by. A government for and by the people has somehow morphed into a government for and by the government, and it appears that the only ones we have to blame is us. The American people would much rather be outraged over the things that don’t matter, instead of being outraged over the things that do matter. The problem has nothing to do with just Trump or Biden, the problem has to do with the government itself. Until we start looking at things for what they really are, it’s going to become worse. A government that’s allowed by it’s people to run totally off the rails is a government that’s deserved by the people that allow it.

Would I eat that?

David Sherman, a long standing fixture in the Great Falls blogosphere is currently posting a new semi-regular feature called “Would You Eat It?”
He explains that periodically he’ll be posting various types or kinds of food items on his blog that may or may not be edible to some and encourages feedback on those food items.

It sounds fun I think.

This week David has whale flavored canned horse meat … um … nummy

Stop in to visit David in your travels. It might be just worth your time.